"Space Exploration Editorial Department": Why people believe in the existence of aliens ?-- China Digital Science and Technology Museum
"Cosmic Exploration Editorial Department" is a pseudo-documentary that tells the story of a group of people looking for alien creatures. It's not sci-fi, it's not sci-fi, it's not sci-fi, it's important to say three times!
The protagonist of the movie is Tang Zhijun, the editor-in-chief of the veteran science fiction magazine "Cosmic Editor", which is already on the verge of shutting down. The middle-aged Tang editor-in-chief lived a down-to-earth life and firmly believed in the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations. A series of coincidences in his opinion led him to believe that aliens had sent signals, so he embarked on a journey west to find alien signals. In addition to him, there are several other members of this team, such as Sun Yitong, who accepts signals against the broken pot. Although the alien search team members in the movie may not seem so normal, there are indeed many people who believe that aliens exist, so what makes these people so obsessed?
Since ancient times, human beings have been full of curiosity about the vast universe beyond the earth, and with the progress of science, human beings have explored the mysteries of the universe more and more deeply, including the search for extraterrestrial life, but the current science has not found conclusive evidence of the existence of aliens. Despite this, many people still believe in the existence of aliens and UFOs. The National Geographic Society once conducted a survey, and the results showed that 77% of respondents believed that aliens had come to Earth, 36% of Americans believed in the existence of UFOs, only 17% did not believe it, and the rest were "not good". In a more recent survey, 57 percent of respondents believed that there was intelligent life and civilization on other planets, and 45 percent believed that UFOs existed and had been to Earth.
What people know about extraterrestrials often comes from a variety of media. Whether it's a fictional film, a novel, or a documentary, there are stories of aliens visiting or searching for aliens. Many celebrities believe in the existence of aliens and talk about them in interviews, and some are even actively working to explore extraterrestrial intelligence (such as Tesla's boss Elon Musk).
What doesn't exist will not be mentioned, what (maybe) exists will be discussed. Therefore, the first time people came into contact with the concept of aliens was that "there are aliens" (or maybe there are). In order to conserve cognitive resources, people tend to think that the concepts and ideas they first come into contact with are true, so that "the existence of aliens" becomes a preconceived "true proposition".
But for these concepts to become beliefs, it has to do with confirmation bias. Confirmation bias refers to the fact that once people accept a proposition, they will selectively seek and accept evidence that conforms to the proposition in various evidences, and ignore the evidence that overturns the proposition. Once we accept the premise that there are aliens, we will selectively accept the information that supports the existence of aliens because of the confirmation bias, for example, when we see a craft that we have never seen before, we may think that it is a spaceship that aliens have come to Earth.
Another reason why people believe in aliens is that it is difficult to confirm (there is no way to prove) that aliens do not exist, and even if they have not seen them, people have various explanations for "not finding aliens", such as they will become like normal earthlings, they will all die or be arrested for experiments as soon as they arrive on Earth, and some movies believe that aliens have the ability to "make people forget that they have seen them". Many governments have special institutions and programs to find extraterrestrial intelligent beings, but these institutions and programs are always wrapped in an aura of mystery and people lack understanding of them. People who believe in the existence of aliens will add different speculations and explanations to "no evidence", for example, 80% of Americans believe that the government is withholding information about aliens.
In terms of cognition, in addition to "knowing what it is", people also pursue "knowing why it is", but "why it is" is not necessarily the real reason, or it may just give themselves a reason. We need to understand the ins and outs of things, the causes and consequences, and always find an "explanation" for things that we don't know. But sometimes it's too tiring to "find an explanation", and people are used to attributing things to a significant cause. Once people accept the concept of "aliens", they will follow this idea to explain things that are ambiguous or puzzling. In addition, under the existing knowledge system, people find that too many things cannot be explained, so many theories are put forward to explain these strange phenomena, and when there are "aliens" as a clue to explain, people will tend to explain the problem in this way of rapid attribution, so there are ideas such as "alien man-made" or "aliens help humans build".
It has been said that people can be divided into those who believe in aliens and those who do not. But in reality, most people are skeptical. In order to study people's beliefs about extraterrestrial creatures, psychologists have developed corresponding questionnaires. For example, a scholar in the United Kingdom has developed the "Extraterrestrial Belief Scale" to study which people believe in extraterrestrial intelligent beings more. Surveys show that men may be more likely than women to believe in the existence of aliens, and highly educated people are more likely to question the existence of aliens. In addition, people who believe in extraterrestrial intelligence have a higher "open-minded" personality trait, which means that they have a high willingness to fantasize, explore new ideas, and try new things.
In "Space Exploration Editorial Department", Tang Zhijun pins the meaning of life on the constant search for aliens. When he thought there was a chance to find aliens, he decided to ask them a question: what is the meaning of existence? This is the ultimate question, and the aliens can't answer him, and he doesn't seem to need an answer from the aliens. Tang Zhijun and Sun Yitong in the movie, in this "Journey to the West", are like Tang Seng and Wukong who seek the true scriptures, and the so-called "true scriptures" are the meaning. The meaning of life can be divided into two types: the meaning of existence (being able to perceive the meaning of life) and the search for meaning (there may be no or very little meaning in life, and it is necessary to find the meaning of life).
Psychological research has found that believing in aliens may be related to the meaning of life. The study found that existential meaning was negatively correlated with extraterrestrial beliefs, while the search for meaning was positively correlated with extraterrestrial beliefs. In other words, people may believe in and search for extraterrestrial creatures as a way and way to find meaning in life. However, according to the research on the meaning of life, the search for meaning can positively predict life satisfaction and subjective well-being, while the search for meaning is positively correlated with depression.
People who are constantly looking for aliens in the movie don't seem to have a good life, and even seem "not normal". Although at the end of the film, Tang Zhijun said that seeing aliens was a dream, but after waking up from this dream, he seemed to have found the answer he had always wanted to ask, and the answer to everything was in life. Having found the meaning of life, it may not matter if there are aliens or not.